A Matter of Faith
by cheekyrox
Summary: The angel sigil Castiel taught Dean sends any angel nearby back to Heaven. Having Fallen for the Winchesters' sake, Castiel can't quite understand how Dean ever believed that using the same sigil on him was anything less than a death sentence. Inspired by Dean's line in the first episode of Season 9: 'If Heaven is locked, where do you guys go when I do this'. Set in S05/E18.
1. Chapter 1

**Summary: The angel sigil Castiel taught Dean sends any angel nearby back to Heaven. Having Fallen for the Winchesters' sake, Castiel can't quite understand how Dean ever believed that using the same sigil on him was anything less than a death sentence. **

**A/N: Inspired by Dean's line in the first episode of Season 9: 'If Heaven is locked, where do you guys go when I do this?'. Angels sigils send angels back to Heaven, and Dean was aware of this. Juicy material right there, and writing two stories at the same time is clearly a wonderful idea.  
**

**Read, review, and enjoy.**

**Cheerio,**

**Cheekyrox**

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_**Part 1-Faith Alone**_

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Betrayal came in a flash of brilliant light and a hand slammed against a bloodied wall. It came when the person in whom he had placed the last vestiges of his tattered faith gave up the fight for which he had sacrificed everything. It came in the sudden materialization of his home around him, and the seconds it took for his brethren to realize he was there.

It came when the man for whom he had died consigned him to the same fate a second time.

For a brief, fleeting moment he entertained the idea of doing nothing. Of simply allowing his brothers and sisters to do as they willed. What reason was there to return to Earth when the fires of a full-powered archangel, wearing the face of the man he had dared to call friend, would soon consume it?

The moment came and passed, then the first of his brethren was upon him, and Ezekiel laid a hand upon his arm and said, "Flee, Castiel, swiftly!"

It was the first he had heard of any of his family not entirely opposing his actions, and that simple discovery was enough of a reason to live.

He was airborne in the blink of an eye, utilizing the speed that had granted him the power to save Dean Winchester, but the Host had foreseen his escape and all exits were blocked. He was trapped here with hundreds of his fellow angels who wanted him dead, and perhaps one who would regret the deed once it was done. He was fast still, and had the added cunning earned from his time dwelling in the world of humanity, but he was also far weaker than he had been when an archangel handpicked him for the task of raising the Righteous Man, and he knew he could not play cat and mouse indefinitely.

One of them caught his wing in a replica of an old woman's garden. In a young girl's memories of her first meeting with her younger brother a scorching blade seared a scoring blow into his back. He narrowly missed an impaling in a glowing rendition of a young couple's wedding, the blade skimming through his vessel's flesh instead and just missing his Grace. His injuries were hampering his ability to outrun them, and his sense of direction was scattered along with his ability to detect his fellow angels, so it was no surprise when he slammed down gracelessly in the Heaven alongside his favored memory and found Zachariah waiting for him.

"Castiel." Zachariah used his vessel's near manic grin to adequately portray his elation when his tone of voice alone would have sufficed. "Welcome home, little brother."

Zachariah's blade flew at the same time as Castiel heard the prayer, and those few words were all he needed. A lifeline to tug him free of Heaven's waters and back to the solid Earth.

He did not silence the preacher so much as land on the poor man's head, but it served the same purpose of quieting his obnoxiously loud call to Heaven, so he supposed it did not really matter in the end. His momentum was such that he continued rolling even after hitting the man, and when he finally came to a halt there was cold, wet pavement at his back and a starless night above him. He should have risen, then, should have seized Dean and fled to safety, but, really, what was the point? Dean had already given up, and in so doing had robbed Castiel of the only shred of faith he had left. Had taken away the reason he had rebelled in the first place. He was more than simply angry at the man, he felt betrayed, betrayed yet again, this time by the one person he had dared to trust completely.

"Cas?" A hand landed on his shoulder, but he flinched away, angry and hurt and betrayed and exhausted. The cold, wet concrete was cool against the heat radiating from his vessel, from his very being, and it seemed to ease the sensation of burning alive. "Cas, what the hell...?"

Dean sounded scared, for some obscure reason. Why did he fear the fate of one Fallen angel when he intended to destroy the world?

"Cas!" Fingers clutched his shoulder, tight and piercing, but the sensation wasn't right. "Dammit, man, you're bleeding all over the pavement!"

He hadn't even noticed, curled onto his side in a vain effort to protect himself from the pain warping his senses, but alerted now he watched distantly as rivulets of crimson mingled with the rainwater on the footpath.

"Heal yourself!" Dean was shaking him urgently. "C'mon, Cas, fix this already. You're making a mess."

He ignored the human, as he himself had been ignored, and simply closed his eyes. His Grace was in ruins, battered, he feared, beyond repair, and Dean was worried about the damage to his vessel?

"Whoa, hey, no sleeping!"

Dean jerked him off the roadside by his coat lapels, and sitting up he lurched in the Hunter's loose hold, unable to distinguish the difference between his vessel's pain and that surging through his true form. He ended up pitching forward, his forehead pressed against Dean's shoulder as the elder Winchester struggled to adjust his balance to accommodate the weight suddenly pressing down on him. But he didn't _want_ Dean's help, and, though it took a Herculean effort, he pushed himself off the hunter, struggling drunkenly to his feet where he simply stood, wavering.

He had no idea what he was meant to do now, his purpose stripped from him, because if Dean would not _fight_ then what was left? He had had his faith shattered before and had drowned his sorrows in a profoundly human manner, but that pain held not a candle to the raging inferno now ignited within him, and he wouldn't know where to begin trying to patch over the gaping holes Dean's actions had torn in his convictions, his trust, and their _friendship_. He had thought… He had let himself believe… He had been foolish, it seemed, for no matter where he bestowed his faith the object of that faith never ceased to fail him, so why believe at all?

There was something wrong with his vessel, and he did not realize he was listing to the side until Dean's hand closed over his elbow, the other reaching to encircle his back and… _No_.

"No." He shook the hunter's hold off with dogged determination, staggered without the support, and promptly clutched at the wall to keep himself upright. His failure to carry himself did nothing to dissuade him, however, and when Dean moved to touch him again he repeated his adamant refusal. "_No_."

"I just want to help, Cas." There was a helpless look on Dean's face now, a change from hopelessness at least, but not enough to erase any of what he had done.

"I do not _want _your help," he spat the words, and they were not a lie. What help was it to open his eyes and give him a direction only to slam the door shut in his face when he arrived? He had abandoned everything he knew and betrayed countless comrades for this man, the same man who now waved the bold flag of surrender. How dare he? _How dare he_? "You've given up, Dean. You've _surrendered_, and now everything I… Why did you beg me to aid you if you intended to submit all along? What was it, _any of it_, for?"

"Cas, I…"

It was rare indeed to see the elder Winchester rendered utterly speechless, but Castiel felt little triumph at the achievement. His legs would no longer hold him, and he found himself on his knees, still half-propped against the wall, with Dean hovering over him, his hands outstretched but veering shy of touching the angel.

"Go back to your preacher," he replied stonily, spent, without the energy left to fight his charge. If this was to be the end then let it end quickly. Perhaps Michael would do him the mercy of killing him before he was forced to watch Dean annihilate half the planet. "I'm sure Heaven is eagerly awaiting your next call."

"Yeah, well…" Dean hesitated, and when Castiel rolled his eyes up to gaze at the still hovering hunter he could cleary witness the internal struggle taking place through the expressions on Dean's face. "I figure they can wait a little longer. Seriously, dude, you might want to do something about all that blood."

Castiel simply let his head hang, too tired to try and make sense of Dean's contradictory statements. The brick wall beside him was bearing most of his weight now, and Dean's voice was rich with concern as he crouched down and reasserted the grasp Castiel still did not welcome.

"Hey," he said. "Hey, come on. Mojo yourself better already."

It wasn't worth the effort of explaining the fact repairing his vessel was well beyond his powers at this point. His Grace was in ribbons, his true form had come dangerously close to being torn apart, and Dean wanted to say 'yes' to those responsible.

"I gave _everything_ for you." Desolate, he whispered the words as he opened his eyes and found Dean's own mere inches away. That closeness did little to abate the distance between them, however, and Castiel felt it like a gaping chasm. "I trusted you, and this? _This_ is all I am offered in return."

"Cas, I'm sorry." The worst part of all was that Dean was sincere. "I told you this was too big. I said… I tried, dammit, but I just don't see that there's any way to…"

"Just leave me alone." He was too weak to shake off Dean's grasp this time, but closing his eyes effectively broke the connection between them.

"Sure, Cas, okay. I'll let you be, just as soon as you magic yourself better." Dean attempted to bargain with him, and Castiel tried to recall a single scenario where that had actually worked. "Whaddya say, huh? Just crack out the old angel juice and you'll be rid of me, I promise."

He didn't bother opening his eyes this time.

"I can't."

"_What_?"

Dean's hold on him suddenly tightened, and there was a ringing note of panic in his voice. Castiel didn't care, the darkness was beckoning him now, and he saw no reason to resist.


	2. Chapter 2

******Summary: The angel sigil Castiel taught Dean sends any angel nearby back to Heaven. Having Fallen for the Winchesters' sake, Castiel can't quite understand how Dean ever believed that using the same sigil on him was anything less than a death sentence. **

**A/N**: This is probably inadequately proofread, but, meh, who cares? And no, I'm not torturing any of these characters. What gave you that impression?

Read, review, and enjoy.

Cheerio,

Cheekyrox

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_**Part 2-A Shade Shy of Dead**_

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There was too much blood.

It covered his hands where they were fisted in the back of Castiel's trenchcoat and soaked through his shirt where the angel was pressed against him, his body being the only thing keeping the unconscious angel off the ground. There was too much blood, and he knew Castiel was an angel but this couldn't be healthy no matter how holy the tax accountant was. He needed to stop the bleeding. He needed to get them more out of sight than this alley. He needed that preacher to stay unconscious long enough for him to sort out what the hell he was going to do.

He needed to call Sam.

Getting his phone out of his pocket was difficult when an out-for-the-count angel was using him as a crash-landing site, but he wasn't about to put Cas on the ground with wounds like that. He didn't know if angels were susceptible to infection, but the effort it took to get his cellphone was worth not having to find out. Of course, it had somehow slipped his mind that he had left the Salvage Yard in a less than honest manner, and so he was not at all prepared for the earful he got the moment his brother picked up. Thank goodness he hadn't made the mistake of calling Bobby, cause that would so have not ended well.

"Sam..." he tried to interrupt a good minute into his brother's rant, but Sam was off and running now and simply steamrolled over him. "Sam... Hey, Sammy, listen... Sam! Dammit, would you just listen to me for two seconds? Cas is dying here, you moron!"

That got his brother's attention, though not in the way he might have wished. "What did you _do_, Dean?"

"Nothing, I..."

He stopped, just stopped and actually _thought_ about his answer. He had known he wouldn't be able to leave Bobby's house with Cas on guard, and so he had used the one sure method he had for getting rid of unwanted angels; sending them back to Heaven.

"Oh, shit," he swore, then added a few more choice words for good measure, most directed at himself, though he spared a few for the dicks that were Cas' family. "I'm a fucking idiot, Sam."

"Well, you're not going to hear any arguments from me," Sam snapped, and, yeah, okay, he had deserved that one.

"Look." They were wasting time, and he was fairly certain that sooner or later Castiel was going to run out of blood. "You can tear me a new one later, okay? Right now I have a shredded angel on my hands and I'd really appreciate a pick-up before he reaches his expiry date."

"Where are you?" He could hear the jangle of keys down the phone-line, and the familiar purr of his baby's engine roared in the background as he rattled off their current location.

With a final promise to haul ass as quickly as possible Sam hung up, and Dean was left to clean up his mess as best he could. To be honest the wall wasn't much of a safer bet than the pavement, but he used it to prop Cas up regardless so he could examine what looked to be a fairly deep stab wound in the angel's chest. Judging by the way Cas was still breathing he guessed it hadn't hit anything important, but if it was an angel blade that had done this – and really, was there anything else that could have? – then it had come damn close to being a killing blow. It was also still bleeding, a sluggish flow of precious life fluids, and he really ought to do something about that.

His own clothes were soaked from both the rain and Cas' blood, and the angel's get-up was in an even worse state, so with nothing else on hand Dean slapped his palm across the puncture wound and pressed hard, pulling Cas away from the wall at the same time to catch a glimpse of the injuries on his back. The angel left a red smear on the wall as he moved, and Dean ground his teeth so hard his jaw cracked. Castiel's coat and shirt were torn from the left shoulder diagonally across his chest to the right hand side of his lower back. Practically everything was covered in blood, but the injury itself followed the path that had been rent in the clothing, and Dean didn't have enough hands to cover all of that. He used his entire arm to put pressure on what he could as he silently willed Sam to hurry up and hoped Cas had managed to cut the phone-line before the winged bastards upstairs could answer.

Whether he planned to say yes to Michael or not was utterly irrelevant right now, because he wasn't going to let Cas bleed out here alone in some dark, dank alley. This wasn't the sort of place an angel should die, though he'd have happily left either Zachariah or Raphael there to rot. Cas was different, though, and he wasn't going anywhere until Dean had a chance to apologize. He wasn't yet convinced that there was any other option besides the one he had chosen, but he could admit to the mistakes he had made in trying to carry out his plan, and there was no way in hell Cas was dying for them. Not on his watch.

It was a testament to how unobservant the human race could be that nobody noticed the fact he was holding a bloody angel a few sparse meters from the open street in the time it took Sam to arrive. Dean wasn't really complaining, because the last thing he needed right now was the cops making his life suck even more than it already did, but there was a part of him that would have really welcomed a little help. As it was he was too freakin grateful to care about the bitch-face Sam pinned him with the moment he got out of the car, focusing instead on the supplies his brother had brought with him.

"I'll do it," Sam snapped shortly when he reached out to take some of the gauze off his brother, and the _'you've done enough'_ went unsaid as he crouched beside the bloody pair. "Just hold him."

It wasn't worth the time that would be wasted in an argument, so Dean stayed exactly where he was, helping Sam maneuver the frighteningly unresponsive angel out of his bloodied raiment so they could properly treat his injuries. Not that slapping a bandaid or two over unwashed wounds in some filthy alley was proper, but it might keep Cas amongst the world of the living until they could get back to the Salvage Yard. They worked in silence, well attuned enough to one another that they didn't need words, and if Sam's silence was one of stark disapproval then Dean could deal.

The lines of communication didn't reopen until they were back in the car, Dean crouched in the back with a no less limp Castiel as Sam floored it in a way Dean would have approved of heartily if he actually had time to pay attention to as much. It was Sam who broke the stillness, voice tense and coiled in the way it was whenever his brother was trying to keep the explosive temper a lot of strangers didn't believe little old Sammy could have in check.

"Why isn't he healing himself?"

He swallowed, still haunted by those two words. "He said he couldn't."

"Because it was angels that hurt him?" Sam pressed, but Dean didn't have any answers, and Sam was angry. "What the hell _was_ that, anyway, Dean? I get that you're completely ready to throw in the towel and barrel right on in to get yourself killed, but dragging Cas down with you? That's low, even for you."

"You think I _meant_ for this to happen?" He felt a desperate need to defend himself, even though there was a part of him that knew this was indefensible. "You think I did this on purpose?"

"You sent him to _Heaven_, Dean," Sam retorted fiercely. "What did you _think_ was going to happen?"

He hadn't thought at all, that was the problem, but Sam already knew that, so he didn't bother saying it aloud. They traveled the rest of the way to Bobby's house in bitter silence, though Dean knew that wouldn't last the moment they pulled up to the front porch and he spotted the wheelchair bound figure waiting in the silhouette of the open doorway.

Bobby surprised him, though, by taking one look at the dried blood on both his and Sam clothes and jerking his head towards the house.

"Get him inside already, you idjits," he growled.

The wisest thing to do in this situation was exactly what Bobby told you to do, so Dean did just that. Between them he and Sam managed to manhandle Cas inside without jostling him too badly, not that Dean thought Cas would have even noticed. If it weren't for the fact he hadn't seen any wings back in that alley he would have thought Cas already gone, because the battered, broken vessel in front of him sure didn't look like it was inhabited.

With Bobby snapping at them both every couple of minutes they successfully deposited their injured friend on the nearest bed – which was, he noticed, now sans an Adam – and set about making their emergency field dressings a little more permanent. If it had been one of them sporting the same injuries there was no way they could have avoided a hospital visit, but Dean was sorta half certain Cas had already deposited the majority of his blood supply in that alley, and yet he still had a heartbeat. That saved them the need of shipping him off to be poked and prodded by clueless health professionals, at least, though the alternative wasn't a whole lot better.

"The angels have Adam," Sam told him once Cas was as patched together as he could be under their care and they were both free of their bloodstained clothes. Dean could still feel it sticking to his hands, though, and he had to resist the urge to scrub the phantom sensation away. "We don't know where they've taken him."

"Cas'll know," Dean answered, his certainty dulled by the lack of a surety the angel would ever wake up to tell them.

"Yeah, and by the time he wakes up it could already be too late." Sam was being realistic, Dean knew, but that didn't make it any less depressing. As if he wasn't already feeling as low as he could go. "So, what are you going to do now?"

"Do?" he repeated blankly, hoping to avoid the conversation.

"Yeah, _do_." Sam crossed his arms and used his height advantage to look down on his brother. "You still planning on playing puppet to Michael? To helping the people responsible for _this_?" He waved a hand towards Cas, even though Dean knew full well what he meant.

"There's not a lot of options left, you know," he muttered sullenly.

"Not a lot, maybe," Sam conceded. "But not _none_, Dean. We'll figure something out, we always do."

"So you say." Dean couldn't see it. He was having a lot of trouble seeing beyond anything but the fact he had started all of this in the first place. Sam's face twisted in preparation of another argument, but Dean cut him off before he could go any further. "Relax, Sam, I'm not going anywhere until Cas is back on his feet, so you can save the forceful persuasion for then, okay?"

"Glad to hear you say that," Bobby muttered from his overseer's position behind his desk. "'Cause if you were still planning to bail on us now I'd have shot you myself. Now, if you two are done yapping I could use a hand here, Sam. You," he fixed Dean with a quelling glower, "_watch him_."

Dean held his hands up in surrender, then moved to retrieve a chair, obediently taking up a position alongside the bed Bobby had done nothing but lend out recently. Cas still hadn't moved, and Dean promptly decided this whole dead-but-breathing thing was even creepier than the staring. At least if Cas was staring at him he could be relatively sure the angel was in good health, right now he seemed but a few shades shy of dead.

Drawing in a deep breath he buried his face in his hands and tried to determine when his life had transformed into a shit sandwich. Not that it had all been peaches and cream before, mind, but it was definitely on a downhill slide lately. Which was ironic, really, when one considered all the divine intervention in his life recently.

"Hey." Sam sounded a little less pissy than before when he reappeared a fair number of hours later, though Dean didn't exactly see him bouncing up and down with glee either. Which probably meant he and Bobby hadn't yet uncovered the miracle cure they both seemed to think was going to pop out of thin air any moment now. "Any change?"

"No." And to be honest, it was kind of starting to freak him out. This was almost like when Cas had fried himself sending them back in time, except then it had only lasted a few hours or so. They were already edging towards the day marker now, and Castiel hadn't so much as twitched. "What about you lot? You managed to find a way to magic Adam away from the angels yet?"

"Maybe," Sam shifted uneasily. "But you won't like it."

"I never do," he sighed, scrubbing a hand exhaustedly across his face. "Okay, so spill."

"Well, we kinda figured that the only person who knew where angels would take Adam would be another angel."

"Yeah, I know that already." Dean hated it when Sam stated the obvious. It normally meant he had a hell of a doozy card shoved up his sleeve.

"And another angel could tell us what's going on with Cas," Sam persisted. "Maybe even heal him."

"Whoa, hold on there." He held up a hand, adding a hard look to make sure Sam shut his trap. "You're not suggesting what I think you're suggesting, are you?"

"We don't have a lot of options left, Dean," Sam said, as though he needed reminding.

"So you want to invite one of the winged dicks, the _same_ dicks that hurt Cas in the first place, down here to join the party? Are you nuts?"

"I wasn't thinking of the angels in Heaven," Sam defended himself somewhat huffily.

"Then who?" Dean demanded. "Last I checked Anna was dead, and she tried to kill you anyway. The same could be said for just about any angel we've ever known."

"Not all of them," Sam replied, and Dean was suddenly incredulous.

"You _didn't_." He stared at Sam's guilty expression. "Sam, _please_ tell me you didn't."

Sam opened his mouth to reply, but was beaten to the punch by a cheerful voice Dean would quite happily have never heard again.

"Hello, boys." Dean turned, and Gabriel offered him a winning smile. "You miss me?"


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary: The angel sigil Castiel taught Dean sends any angel nearby back to Heaven. Having Fallen for the Winchesters' sake, Castiel can't quite understand how Dean ever believed that using the same sigil on him was anything less than a death sentence. **

Read, review, and enjoy.

Cheerio,

Cheekyrox

* * *

_**Part 3-You Can't Choose Your Family**_

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"So." If he was troubled by the fact the Winchesters had suddenly summoned him out of the blue Gabriel didn't show it, happily crunching on a candy bar as his gaze shifted between the two brothers. "What's going on at muttonhead central? Clearly you two have done something momentously stupid or you wouldn't have called, though I'm pretty sure we already covered the fact I'm not going to magic everything better for you and... Whoa, hey! What happened to _him_?"

That last was directed at Castiel's unmoving form, but it was spoken with Gabriel's usual casual curiosity and Dean's hackles immediately rose. Why Sam had thought it was a good idea to call this dick was beyond him, but he was seriously considering plugging him right then and there, just for the hell of it.

"That's not very nice, Dean," Gabriel scolded, speaking from behind him now as he leant over Cas and poked the unresponsive angel with one finger. "I didn't have to answer the phone, you know, and I certainly didn't have to answer it so nicely."

"Yeah, well, I didn't call."

"_Ooh_." Gabriel's reaction was more than a little mocking as he straightened. "Trouble in Paradise? That's a real shame, boys, but, you know, I'm not a marriage counselor either. Though if you do feel like a little bit of therapy..."

"Gabriel," Sam interceded before Dean broke his hand on the archangel's face. "We need your help."

"Oh, yeah, I got that." Gabriel nodded his head significantly in Castiel's direction. "You broke your pet angel so now you're popping down to the store to get a new one. Well, sorry guys, but I think the model you set your eyes on is a bit above your pay grade."

"And if we keep you in Holy Fire until you say yes?"

"That wouldn't be very nice at all," Gabriel deadpanned. "Though, I've got to admit, Raph's face was pretty funny. He's never going to live down the fact he got rescued by a chick, that's for sure."

"You knew about that?" He supposed he shouldn't have really been all that surprised. For someone supposedly out of the loop Gabriel seemed remarkably _in_ the loop most of the time.

"You think I'd miss a chance to openly mock my family with no risk to myself?" Gabriel simply grinned. "You could have made millions charging out your angel sideshow, bucko. You got any idea how many people went to say hi? Or, you know, just to laugh in his face?"

"I thought you were in witness protection," Sam frowned.

"Oh, I am," Gabriel assured him, and Dean was pretty sure that was candy bar number five in his hand. "That didn't stop it from being absolutely hilarious, though."

"Okay, we're way off topic here." Dean shook his head, again cursing Sam and his bright ideas, and Bobby for helping him with them. "Are you going to help out or what?"

"That's the sixty dollar question, though, isn't it?" Gabriel said, unrepentant. "Or _what_? Hey, Dean, do me a favor and don't use a street preacher next time you want to radio Heaven. They clog up every channel, and, really, what's with all the shouting?"

"Just answer the damn question already," Dean snapped, his patience having flown south about ten seconds before Gabriel arrived. "Can you help or not?"

"Oh, I can definitely help." Gabriel nodded sagely. "The question is, why would I? Honestly, you guys break the world and it's all 'Gabriel can fix it', then you break your angel and somehow the same rules apply? Well, guess what, guys? The answer is 'no'."

"You..." Dean began angrily, but Sam beat him to the chase.

"Dean's going to say yes to Michael."

"So I gathered," Gabriel snorted. "Shouting, remember? Honestly, it's enough to make you deaf."

"But not until Cas is better," Dean picked up where Sam had left off, ignoring the way Sam looked as though he'd just swallowed something unpleasant. "So if you want to see this whole thing end you'd better patch him back up right now."

"I don't know," Gabriel mused, pretending to consider the matter. "The whole end of the world fad is a little bit last week, don't you think?"

"You're saying you've changed your mind?" Sam asked tentatively. "You don't want the Apocalypse anymore?"

"You idiots really don't know the meaning of the word inevitable, do you?" Gabriel observed. "This thing is going to happen no matter what anyone wants, especially now big brother here is on the steam train chugging straight on down to the end of the world, fasten your seatbelts and no return tickets, thanks. I've said it before and I'll say it again; you guys started this, and it can't be stopped, no matter how tricks you pull out of the magic hat."

"Forget the freakin Apocalypse for a damned minute!" Dean snapped at them both. "You're here to fix Cas, so get fixing!"

"What would be the point of that?" Gabriel demanded, pinning him with a quelling look. "Sure, I can patch up his vessel all hunky-dory so you squeamish morons won't have to flinch at all that blood, but what you're looking at is the icing on the cake, not the filling, so to speak, and Castiel is looking an awful lot like shredded paper under all that bloody meatsuit." Dean attempted to skewer the archangel with his eyes, but Gabriel only shrugged. "Just saying."

Casually folding his arms he leant back against the wall, eyes scanning along the books shelved there, before returning to the two Winchesters. "What did he do, anyway? I mean, he wasn't exactly all that peachy last time I saw him, but I'm pretty sure he was still mostly intact." Neither brother answered, and Gabriel's eyes narrowed somewhat. "Or maybe I should be asking what _you_ did. Guilty conscience, Dean?"

"Look," Dean took a step forward, one finger raised in warning as he fought desperately to keep his despair fueled fury in check, knowing that the archangel before him may well be his only chance to fix this. "I know you don't like us. I know you don't give a damn and you'd rather see the world rot. But Cas is your _brother_, you damn coward, and that's got to count for something. _Help_ him, _please_."

It was an echo of an appeal he had made once before, to the same friend he was now trying to save, and he could only pray it would be answered. And that... _that_ was a really bad choice of words.

"In case you didn't notice, Dean, my family and I aren't exactly on speaking terms. How's that supposed to be motivation?"

"Hating their guts doesn't make them any less your family." He knew that with a surety that did not waver like his other frail convictions. "And you still care. You cared enough to leave so you didn't have to watch. You cared enough to try and make it end quickly, before Lucifer and Michael rehashed an argument you didn't want to see in excruciating detail. And maybe there's nothing you can do. Maybe this is out of your league too. Maybe you're as helpless in all this as we are. But here is something you _can_ do. Here is the one sibling you can save, the only one worth _trying_ to save. Now, you can say no. You can tilt your halo and flap your wings and get the hell out of dodge. But then you'd have to live with yourself, Gabriel. You'd have to look that ugly mug in the face every damn morning and justify the fact that you had the power to do something and you did nothing. So if you won't do it for me, if you won't do it for Cas, then do it for yourself, so you can at least look yourself in the eye when the world ends."

The silence that followed was absolute, Gabriel's gaze hard and steely, so that Dean wondered for a moment if the only thing that he had achieved was getting himself and Sam smote.

"Alright." The agreement came quietly, and for once it was free of the layers of sarcasm and indifference Dean had recognized for the shields they were at their last meeting. "Alright, I'll do what I can, but there's no guarantee I can make a difference."

"What do you mean?" Sam asked, frowning.

Gabriel stared at him incredulously. "Do you guys listen to anything you're told?"

"No," Bobby interjected sharply, and Dean jumped, wondering how the hell the man had managed to creep up on them when he was stuck in that damned chair. "They don't. So tell me. Why is it you can't magic ol' feathers over there better?"

"Angels heal flesh and bone: meatsuits, cats, dogs, bugs if we're really bored. We don't heal other angels. Like I said, the shredded meat I can fix. Castiel's Grace, on the other hand." He shrugged. "Well, that's a whole other kettle of fish."

"But he'll recover on his own, right?" Sam, ever the optimist. "Like he did last time?"

"Sam, Sam, Sam." Crossing the room without taking a step, Gabriel laid a hand on the younger Winchester's shoulder. "Let me ask you something; Have you ever seen roadkill that's been run over at least a million times? Yes? Well, let me tell you, right now that unfortunate critter looks a lot better than Castiel does."

Bobby swore, and Dean might have followed suit if his guilt and hopelessness weren't trying to claw their way up his throat.

"How do we fix it?" he blurted, and Gabriel swung to face him. A resolve settling in his mind the elder Winchester took a step forward, hands clenched tightly at his sides. "His Grace. How do we fix it?"

"I thought you'd never ask." The grin on the archangel's face was possibly one of the most genuine expressions he'd ever seen linger there. "You've got to give the kid back his faith."

"What?" He drew a blank on that one.

"Where do you think angels get their power from?" Gabriel retorted, the 'idiot' clear enough without being uttered aloud.

"Uh, Heaven?" Sam ventured, and Gabriel snorted.

"Textbook answer, I might have known, but you're thinking inside that box you call a brain. I'm not talking about the flashy light show and the snappy fingers. I'm talking about what an angel, particularly one cut off from Heaven, needs to survive."

Neither Winchester spoke, so Bobby filled the void. "Which is?"

"A purpose, you dumbasses." Gabriel rolled his eyes. "Just look at me, running around, saving good people, feeding bad people to alligators and wormholes. I've got a job, which is a heck of a lot better than my last job, but a job nonetheless. Castiel had a job, too, in Heaven. I'm thinking it probably consisted of lots of taking orders and, oh, yeah, rule one; don't think for yourself if you want to live. Then he found a new job, and you two were it, right up until the moment Dean here up and quit. Whoops, just erased Castiel's position there, Dean. He's an angel, he has to have a mission, whether that's dragging deadbeat idiots out of hell or delivering candy floss don't matter. You take that away and you've pretty much killed him already."

He swallowed, but the obstruction in his throat did not disappear. "Can you give it back?"

"What?" Gabriel blinked. "His faith? Of course not! I'm not the one who stole it in the first place. Besides, he's buried so deep I'd be hard pressed to reach him right now."

"So you're saying that's it?" Dean demanded harshly. "There's nothing you can do?"

"Me? No, nothing."

"What about Dean?" Sam queried, because he had always been the more observant of the two of them. "Could _he_ help?"

"He could try." The archangel shrugged again. "But without a means of reaching Castiel it would seem a bit like a fruitless exercise, and I like my fruit salad good and tasty, thanks."

"What kind of means are we talking here?" Right now, he was ready to do just about anything to fix this particular fuck-up.

"A preformed connection, naturally. So unless you have one of those lying around...?"

"What about this?" It was faded, but the handprint burnt into his shoulder still showed on the skin when he rolled up his sleeve. Gabriel leant forward to examine it curiously, and Dean pushed the issue. "Will it work?"

"Yup." Rocking back on his heels the archangel nodded. "That ought do it. Now all you need to do is convince him to believe in you again. Shouldn't be all that hard, right?"

If they hadn't needed his help so badly, Dean would have taken a swing, angel or not, because whether Gabriel was wearing the guise of an Archangel or a Trickster didn't seem to matter, the guy was still a dick.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary: The angel sigil Castiel taught Dean sends any angel nearby back to Heaven. Having Fallen for the Winchesters' sake, Castiel can't quite understand how Dean ever believed that using the same sigil on him was anything less than a death sentence. **

Read, review, and enjoy.

Cheerio,

Cheekyrox

* * *

_**Part 4-The Walking Wounded**_

* * *

Dean recognized the park that formed around him, slowly shifting from a misted mirage to something more solid. To swings and climbing frames and young children with their laughing parents. It was here, in sunlight that shone in defiance of any broken seal that Castiel had first proclaimed each and every human being a work of art. Those words had been a far cry from Uriel's derogatory 'mudmonkeys', and Dean had sat beside the angel and listened as Castiel justified his inexplicable instinct that this angel would at least heed his words, and perhaps even cared about the humans in his charge, orders or no orders. Otherworldly as he was, there had always been a human spark to Castiel that was not present in any other angel he had met, and Dean had recognized that somehow, and figured that if there was any warrior of God who was likely to go to bat for him it was going to be this one.

He'd been right, too, because Cas had come through for him in the end. In a careless glance away and a '_just so you know… why I can't help_'. That was before Heaven's bootcamp got involved, though, before they did whatever they did that almost cost Dean his ace up his sleeve. What did it say about Heaven's persuasion, he thought darkly, that Cas had gone from 'works of art' to 'not worth saving' overnight? And Cas had been _scared_, Dean had seen that clearly in his frantic '_Dean, I can't'_ that night in Bobby's salvage yard. What did it even take to invoke such a reaction from an angel? What had he blindly and unthinkingly dropped the weakened celestial smack bang in the middle of?

"You were willing to risk Uriel's wrath to save these people." Whirling in surprise, Dean found Cas seated exactly where he had been on that warm afternoon. His elbows were resting on his thighs, his hands clasped, and his silver-blue eyes remained focused on the children playing even as he addressed Dean. "You proclaimed them worth the risk of another fallen Seal, sacrificed a battle for the retention of their lives, and yet now you condemn them to death by hellfire and heavenly wrath."

He swallowed, his throat dry, and how was that even possible when he wasn't really here? "They might not die," he answered, taking his place on the bench alongside the angel.

"It is likely that they will," Castiel's response was matter-of-fact. "I do not understand, Dean. Have their lives diminished in value since you so ardently defended them?"

"Of course they haven't." He knew he was walking right into a series of unanswerable questions by admitting as much, but it was the truth.

"But they are not worth as much in your eyes as the family you will save when you make your bargain with Michael."

Dean stiffened slightly. "What bargain?"

"You are Dean Winchester," Castiel replied simply. "You will not say 'yes' without conditions. No doubt Sam's safety in whatever may follow will be first and foremost upon the list. Robert Singer's life as well, it is likely, alongside those others you care enough for to make arrangements as to their safety. You will sacrifice the whole world so that those you care for survive, and you will do so without regret."

"I'm not seeing a lot of other options here, Cas." There was no point in denying what was the truth, though he thought maybe the 'without regret' was stretching it a bit.

"There are many other options," Castiel answered him severely, voice stiff with anger. "But you do not wish to save a 'boatload of people', Dean, and you are lying to yourself if you believe that is what motivates you. You wish only to preserve those who are close to you, to save yourself from the pain of further loss by inflicting it instead on others."

"They are not going to die for a mistake _I_ made." Too many had already. Jo, Ellen, Adam now too, probably, and countless others. Dean drew the line here, though. Nobody else. _Nobody_ else.

"What mistake?" Castiel demanded, gaze bright and searing as it clashed with Dean's own. "Breaking the First Seal? Are you so arrogant as to believe you could actually have withstood Hell's torments indefinitely? Most souls condemned to the pit are evil, Dean, they would far sooner inflict pain than endure it. That you resisted the combined onslaught of so many racing towards a single goal is a testament to your strength of character, not a revelation of some drastic failing in the same."

"Don't do that, Cas." The weight of the past was too crushing, and he struggled to even _think_ on those memories, let alone discuss them. "Don't make me out to be some Righteous Man with a special destiny, because we both know that I'm not that anymore, if I ever was. I'm a damned vessel, and that's the only value I have right now. You can't blame me for trying to use that to my advantage."

"Do you know how many angels perished in the fight to raise you?" The question took him off guard, and he opened his mouth to speak only to shut it again when he realized he had no words. "Hundreds, Dean. _Hundreds_ of my brethren who opened a path so that I might reach you. We were told it was worth any cost. That preventing you from breaking the Seal was worth our lives. We could have succeeded, we could have stopped you, save that that was never what we were truly meant to do, and those giving the orders waited until they were certain rescue would not come too soon before setting us upon Hell's borders. It was not just Hell that sought to break you, Dean, but Heaven as well, and yet you assume the fault lies at your feet."

He had never thought about the fact that rescue had deliberately come too late. It was a nausea inducing thought, and just another reminder of how fucked up the management upstairs was, but still…

"My fault or not, it doesn't change the fact that I started all this, and that I screwed the pooch when I tried to stop it as well."

"You speak of Sam killing Lilith?" Castiel broke eye contact, choosing to stare instead at the children again. "If there is fault to be found there it is my burden to carry, not yours. I am the one who released Sam from the panic room."

"Wait…" He recoiled. "_What_?"

"Your brother was a necessary instrument in breaking the final Seal," came the level response. "We could not allow him to be removed from the playing field."

"So you…?"

"Released Sam on Zachariah's orders, then hesitated too long to aid you, so that it was too late to rectify the error. We all had a hand in bringing about the Apocalypse, Dean, whether through action or inaction, so it falls upon us to stop it, not to _hasten _its approach."

"How?" In the end, what had brought them to this point didn't matter, or so Dean figured. What mattered was that they were stuck in a dead-end street and the only way out was down. "Because, unless something drastically changed that you guys haven't bothered telling me about, things are only going to get worse until one or the other of us says yes."

"So you would allow yourself to be bullied into the abandonment of everything we have fought for?"

"It's called 'cutting your losses', Cas," he answered wearily. "It's the only option we have left."

"It is called 'giving up'," Cas corrected him, and that hint of bitter anger was back. "And it is _not_."

"So what the hell do you want me to do, then?" Everybody wanted something from him these days, it seemed, and that they all wanted something different didn't help at all.

Cas' response was a single word. "Fight."

"Yeah, tried that, didn't work." He gave a dry laugh that wasn't really a laugh at all. "You gotta face the reality, Cas, the reality that we're _losing_, and there isn't a single thing we can do about it. I've had enough. I'm tired and…"

"You are afraid," Cas interceded before he could go further. "You fear what price you will yet be asked to pay, and you somehow believe you have the right to forfeit that debt. You would sooner see your friends and family suffer than suffer yourself."

"That's not true…" he objected immediately, but Cas was suddenly standing, and so, he realized a beat after he should have, was he. The park had faded all around them and they stood in absolute darkness, so it was impossible to miss the way the angel's form was glowing with righteous fury.

"It _is_ true." The air snapped and crackled around them like an electric current, and Dean found himself wondering if Cas was really as bad off as Gabriel had claimed, because he certainly didn't seem all that diminished. "You are not the only one to have made sacrifices for this cause, Dean. Others have paid with their lives, with _everything_, and you believe it is your right to make such acts null and void? How many of the people you think you failed to save would be at peace with the decision you are now making? How many would risk dying all over again simply to _stop_ you? What of their families? The people they cared for? Will you bargain for their safety, too, knowing as you do the dishonesty of the higher ranks of the Host? What makes you think Michael will even uphold any promise he makes once he has his way? He could turn on your friends, Dean. He could _destroy_ Sam to ensure Lucifer never holds the advantage of his chosen vessel, and you… you would not be able to do anything but _watch_."

"I… you…" he stammered, at a loss. "Hold on, are you saying Heaven doesn't hold up its side of a deal when Hell _does_?"

"I do not understand why you even have to ask that," Cas replied, sounding weary now, the echoing boom gone from his voice. "We promised you Sam would not be lost if you agreed to do as we asked. The exact opposite happened, and the only reason your brother still stands beside you is because you convinced me to disobey."

"So… So when you told Jimmy you kept your promises, you were lying to the poor bastard?" It was a ridiculous thing to cling to, but Dean was struggling to absorb all the words that had been thrust at him, and fuck if that wasn't just his last hope stalking out the door with a wicked smile on its face.

"I do keep my promises," Cas replied quietly, a regretful expression stealing across his face. "But I have since learnt that not all others do, particularly not those who have the most reason to. Heaven is not as it should be, Dean. I do not think it has been for a long time, and breaking their promises would be the least of many crimes committed by the Host of late."

Dean blinked, seeing for a moment what could not be there. The blood on Castiel's face, a glowing wound in his chest, and a ragged, torn remnant of what had once been a wing. It was gone between one second and the next, but he had _seen_, and somehow he didn't think that was just his conscience playing tricks on him.

"How bad?" he asked, unable to stop himself.

Castiel stared at him mutely in incomprehension.

"How badly did those bastards hurt you, Cas?" How much more guilt did he have to carry, with no absolving factors this time, because there was no one else to blame for his act of selfish cruelty?

"They were trying to kill me." Cas tilted his head to the side, frowning at the elder Winchester. "That I am still alive at all is a miracle in and of itself."

He didn't know what sort of an answer he was hoping for. Reassurance, maybe, that Gabriel had been grossly exaggerating? Having the archangel's words confirmed had not been it, that was for sure, and he took a deep breath that couldn't really _be_ a breath because this wasn't his body and tried to figure out how the hell he was supposed to apologize for sending his best friend off to the slaughterhouse. How and when Cas had even _become_ his best friend he didn't really know, but it had happened somewhere back along the road, and he was kind of hoping he hadn't just utterly destroyed that friendship.

"What are you doing here, Dean?" Cas spoke before he could find the words. "Why did you come?"

"To get you, of course." It should have been that simple, but it was no surprise when it wasn't.

"Why?" Cas asked bleakly. "So I can watch you fail? Watch you betray me again?"

"I didn't mean for you to get hurt," he argued, knowing he deserved the anger in the angel's eyes, wishing he did not have to see the pain that went with it. "I just wanted…"

"You wanted me out of the way," Cas finished for him. "You wanted me gone so you could say 'yes' to Michael, whose first act would likely be to do what Raphael could not and destroy me."

Dean felt as though someone had just zapped him as he stared at Cas, openmouthed. "What?"

"I am Fallen," Cas explained, sounding as though he thought this should be obvious. "There is no worse crime for an angel, and Michael has more reason than most to wish to end all those who follow in his brother's footsteps."

"But… you're not Lucifer. It's not… It's not the same."

"The reason is immaterial," the angel said with the verbal equivalent of a shrug. "Any Fallen angel is a threat, and you have seen yourself Heaven's response."

"Anna…" Dean understood immediately.

"Michael will likely end me whilst I am weak and cannot pose a true threat," Cas continued calmly. "He will not risk history repeating itself, or my finding other ways to bolster my powers besides Heaven's support."

"There are other ways to fuel your mojo?" He hadn't known that, but he only wondered why Cas hadn't mentioned it until the angel fixed him with a dark look.

"None you would find morally acceptable."

He didn't even want to know.

"But it's not like you've done that." He didn't need Cas' weakness as proof, he simply knew. "And helping us… he can't give you the whole death sentence regime for that, surely?"

"I do not kill the brothers and sisters sent after me without reason, Dean," Cas replied somewhat harshly. "I do it because it has become a choice between my life and theirs."

He'd never been an overly consequential thinker, but he was starting to realize that maybe he'd overlooked one consequence too many when he decided to say yes. He'd been so certain it was the only way to protect his family, or what was left of it, but the way Cas put it made it sound like the exact opposite. More like

How to get everyone you care about killed 101'.

"So you're basically saying if I say yes to Michael you get creamed. Even if I make him pinky-promise he won't first."

"With my current injuries it is unlikely I will survive long enough to interfere in any way with your suicidal scheme," Cas told him flatly. "Michael may even thank you for doing his work for him."

_Hell, no_.

"Look, Cas, I know I fucked up. I get it. You have every right to be mad at me, to hate me, even, but you can't give up."

"Why not?" Cas demanded blandly. "_You_ did."

"And I was wrong." Cas' stare was disbelieving, distrustful almost. "I was _wrong_, Cas, okay? You and Bobby and Sam… you were in the right all along. Hell, this is the end of the world, and giving up… it shouldn't even be an option. I just… there was so much shit going on and we've lost so many friends… I'm not as strong as you are, Cas. I can't watch my family dying off piecemeal and just carry on fighting."

"Saying yes to Michael will not make it end."

"But it will be _an _end." He sighed, scrubbing at his face. "That's all I was really looking for."

Cas was hesitant, tentative even as he spoke again, "And now?"

Dean met that searching gaze and simply _held _it. "You've died for me once already, Cas. I'm not going to make you do it again."

"You'll fight?" He couldn't be wounded by the fact that Cas sounded dubious. The angel had _every right_ to doubt him.

"For as long as I can." A more absolute promise would have been a lie, and he wouldn't do that. Not to Cas. Not now.

Cas gave a slow nod, then said, "Why?"

"Because I'm selfish." Always had been, always would be. "And boatloads of people aren't worth you, Sam, and Bobby. Not by a long shot."

"What about Adam?"

"We're going to save him." The _if we can_ was front and center in his mind, but he wouldn't say it aloud for fear of jinxing himself. "Who knows? If we're really lucky maybe Gabriel will even get off his lazy ass and give us a hand."

There was an unidentifiable flash of _something_ in Cas' eyes as his head tilted again. "Gabriel?"

Dean shrugged. "You didn't think I was walking around in your head all by myself, did you?"

Cas' answer made his blood run cold as the realization of exactly what _no faith_ meant slowly sunk in.

"I do not even know if you are real."


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary: The angel sigil Castiel taught Dean sends any angel nearby back to Heaven. Having Fallen for the Winchesters' sake, Castiel can't quite understand how Dean ever believed that using the same sigil on him was anything less than a death sentence. **

Read, review, and enjoy.

Cheerio,

Cheekyrox

* * *

_**Part 5-Three's a Crowd**_

* * *

The shift in the current moving between the unconscious pair was palpable, and Gabriel paused with a spoonful of meringue pie halfway along its trajectory to his mouth, then whipped his head around in a movement so sharp it would have been painful had he actually been human enough for these things to matter. Fortunately he wasn't, so the only thing he had to frown about was the two equally idiotic individuals on the bed.

Dean's expression when he had commanded the elder Winchester to lie down had been priceless, but despite what either brother believed he hadn't just been trying to torment Dean. Castiel's Grace was such a bare flicker now that the only sure way of forging a functioning connection was to add in the physical aspect, and even then Dean's success hung solely on whether or not Castiel chose to even accept his presence. Diminished or not, he was still an angel after all, and he could kick Dean out any time he chose.

"Is something wrong?" Sam had noticed the shift in Gabriel's demeanor instantly, which clearly meant he had not been paying the slightest attention to the book in his hands. A shame, really. It was a good book, and Sam was missing out on all the additions Gabriel had made while he wasn't looking.

"Of course not," he retorted blandly. "Everything's peachy. It's not like I'm entrusting your completely incompetent moron of a brother with the welfare of one of mine or anything. Oh, and let's not forget said brother also caused this mess in the first place."

"Dean didn't mean..." Sam, predictably, moved to defend his less than stellar sibling.

"Sure he didn't," Gabriel snorted. "Just like I'm sure you two muttonheads didn't mean to almost kill him with your little sidetrip back through time."

"You knew about that?" Sam winced slightly, clearly guilty. Or guiltier, maybe. Gabriel had yet to meet a Winchester who didn't feel guilty about something.

"Assume I know everything," he answered smoothly, waving his fork at the younger Winchester. "Because, chances are, I probably do."

Sam looked torn between alarm and something ridiculously similar to hope. "You've been watching us?"

That was just insulting. "I've got better things to do than be bored to death by your mundane life, Sammy."

"So, what, then?" Sam frowned, and Gabriel began counting, making a wager with himself over how high the numbers would go before the lightning of mental inspiration struck. "You've been watching Cas?"

"Someone had to." He shrugged, trading his melted pie slice for the much less messy alternative of a lollipop. "It's not like you guys were doing a particularly good job of looking after him."

"Looking after..." Sam reined himself in, his voice noticeably tight. "The last time you two met he was bleeding by the time you were done!"

"And yet he was still on his feet," Gabriel pointed out. "It's hardly my fault if he resisted protective custody, and at least I didn't send him back to Heaven." Sam's face paled somewhat. "Yeah, I've seen the finger painting in the basement, and when your brother is done cleaning up his mess maybe I'll drop _him_ into a nest of vipers and see how he likes it."

"Look, I know it was a dick move, but Dean really didn't mean for this to happen." Gabriel stared at the younger Winchester, entirely unimpressed. Sam fidgeted under his glower, but, to his credit, or maybe just in proof of how stubborn Winchesters could be, he held his ground. "Really, he's beating himself up about it already."

"Then he won't mind me adding a second whopping on top, will he?" Gabriel responded with malicious intent. "Considering he was the one who demanded I give Castiel back you think he'd be a bit more careful with his toys. Well, playtime privileges are hereby revoked, and when Castiel wakes up I'm confiscating him again."

"You can't do that," Sam objected. "We need him."

"Maybe you should have thought about that _before_ you sent him off to die." There was no teasing note in his voice, because Gabriel was dead serious. "Nope, sorry, you guys had your chance and you blew it. Hindsight's a bitch, isn't she?"

"What about Cas?" Sam demanded, sounding increasingly desperate. "What about what he wants?"

"He doesn't get a vote," Gabriel decided instantly. "On account of having notoriously bad judgment. You and your brother are disqualified on the same premise, and because I've decided I don't like you, or your terrible taste in food. Honestly, that fridge is reason for retribution all on its own."

"You can't do this." Apparently, repeating it somehow made it more true.

"Yeah." Gabriel held up a hand to silence the Hunter's ramblings. "Hold that thought."

"Why?" Sam demanded, rising with the archangel and watching as Gabriel approached the pair on the bed. "What's wrong?"

"Boy, do you ask stupid questions." Gabriel raised his hands in a familiar gesture of preparation. "It's just like that old adage you people love so much. If you want something done right, you gotta do it yourself."

He didn't wait for whatever else Sam had to say, cutting the younger Winchester off with a sharp snap of his fingers.

* * *

"Holy shit!"

Dean backpedaled rapidly, arms waving in an attempt to keep his balance as what had been cavernous emptiness shifted suddenly to the sheer drop of a stark cliff in a brilliant flash of light. Cas recoiled as well, thought he doubted it was for the same reason, and, yeah, that was fear on the angel's face. It was a sight he would happily never see again, just like the infuriating individual he had no doubt was responsible for all of this.

"Dammit, Gabriel!" he whirled on the grinning archangel. "That wasn't funny."

"It was from where I'm standing," was the unrepentant response, before Gabriel shifted his attention to Castiel. "Sheesh, would you relax? If I wanted to kick your ass I would have done it already, _without_ needing to hitch a ride through Dean's brain, thank you very much and let's never do that again."

Now Cas just looked confused, that familiar head tilt a dead give away. "Gabriel?"

"The one and only." The self-proclaimed trickster spread his arms. "Really, I should start charging admission."

"Because killing the unfortunate bastards isn't enough?" Dean snapped back.

"They all got what they were asking for," Gabriel replied calmly. "Watch yourself, Dean, or you'll be next."

He had a response lined up for that, good and ready, but Castiel beat him to the start marker.

"What are you doing here?"

"Being awesome, naturally." Gabriel shrugged with seeming indifference. "Though, I gotta say, I was kinda hoping that penchant for getting into trouble had faded. Not that I don't approve or anything, but you need to master the art of getting _out_ again before you go digging yourselves holes this deep."

"Holes..." Cas repeated slowly, then frowned, seeming to refocus his attention. "You are real?"

"Bro, if changing up the scenery wasn't enough to convince you then I'm going to have to plead tough crowd." Gabriel looked miffed by the fact his realness had even been questioned. "Besides, let's face it, you don't have the imagination to whisk up another me. Him?" He gestured Dean's way with a careless wave of one hand. "Maybe, but why would you want to?"

"Then... Dean is truly here as well?"

"Unfortunately," Gabriel sighed. "I can send him somewhere else if you prefer."

"Don't you dare!" He knew the words wouldn't do him any good, but they at least seemed to distract the archangel for a few seconds. "What are you even doing here? I thought you said this was up to me?"

"Yeah, well, you suck."

"Gabriel." Cas' interjection again prevented Dean's response. "What are you, _either_ of you, doing here? I don't understand."

"That's because you were gifted with smarts, not actual brains." The archangel rolled his eyes. "Obviously Dean is here trying to save you so he can maybe make a dent in that lovely heap of guilt he's dragging around in a sack."

"That isn't the reason I came," Dean insisted, glaring at the unapologetic archangel, who pulled a face in return. Giving up making any progress on that count he turned instead to Castiel. "I'm here because I'm not letting you die, Cas. Sorry, I know you've probably had it with all our shit, but it's just not happening."

"And there he goes again, like a broken record, thinking he actually has a choice in the matter."

Dean tried to incinerate the archangel with his eyes alone. "I _will_ kill you."

"Yeah, how's that going for ya, Dean?" Gabriel simply smiled at him. "This would be... what? Attempt number four?"

"I'll get lucky eventually."

"When you're dead, maybe," Gabriel responded dismissively. "Except you've tried that before, haven't you? Besides, don't be rude. Castiel won't appreciate the blood spatter I'll make when I squash you."

"Gabriel." Cas moved a step forward, placing himself squarely between the Hunter and the angel, though who he was protecting from who was up for debate. "What are _you_ doing here?"

"Haven't we been over this already?" Gabriel sounded exasperated now. "I'm here to save the damsel in distress, who, in this case, just happens to be you."

Cas merely looked perplexed. "Why?"

"Because you're annoying," Gabriel shot back levelly. "And you don't know how to stay out of trouble. I blame them." He nodded significantly in Dean's direction. "They're a bad influence."

"You are attempting to save me because I irritate you?"

"Okay, first off I'm not 'attempting' anything. I don't attempt, I _do_, and that's that. Secondly, I didn't say you were annoying _me_, and anyone with the gall to stick Raph in a circle of fire earns at least one free pass in my book. Come on, Castiel, whaddya say? It'll be like old times again."

Cas, however, was not so easily charmed. "You mean when you left?"

"Ouch," Gabriel winced dramatically. "That's harsh."

"You will likely do the same again once you have achieved whatever you came here to achieve." Castiel was unmoved. "Why pretend otherwise?"

"So now you're telling me I'm predictable. I repeat, tough crowd."

"Look, Cas, ignore him, he doesn't matter." Dean forced his way back into the conversation again. "What matters is that everything I just told you was the truth. I was wrong, I'm sorry, but if you'll just give me another chance I swear I'll make it right."

"For how long?" Cas asked wearily. "Are you simply going to give up again the moment someone you care for is in danger? Because it will happen again, Dean, more people may die, and I refuse to watch you surrender to them again."

"The only thing those dicks are getting out of me is a kick up the ass, Cas, I promise. I'll find another way besides saying yes. I don't know how yet, but I will."

He knew he deserved the lack of trust in the steady gaze bearing into his own, but Cas didn't, and Dean had never imagined he would be the second person to put such an expression there.

"I'm serious, Cas," he pleaded, knowing if the angel refused to trust him again there was very little he could do to make him change his mind. "I won't fail again."

"You know, bro," Gabriel interjected solemnly. "For what it is worth, I think the yahoo actually means what he is saying. So how about you come out of hiding, hm?"

The look Castiel pinned on the archangel was unfathomable, and, yeah, Dean knew history when he saw it.

"Why are you helping?" Cas asked slowly. "You would not before."

"Tricksterdom was getting boring," Gabriel shrugged carelessly. "And if little ol' Lucy insists on wiping cities off the map I'm going to run out of people to whammy real fast. I'm protecting my own interests here."

Dean snorted. "Translation, Cas, his brothers are the ones causing this colossal fuck up, and its about time he stopped playing chicken. Let's face it, Gabriel, you've been letting a soldier run around doing your job whilst the general was off having a nice vacation."

"Excuse me?" Gabriel's glare was impressive, and promised a future smiting. "I'm not the one who dragged Castiel into this mess, Dean. Last I checked he was safely out of the way until two muttonheads got involved."

"Yeah, because being under the command of those dickheads you call brothers was so much safer!" Dean retorted, not even thinking of how suicidal it could potentially be to go toe-to-toe with an archangel. "Or maybe you weren't aware that Raphael blew Cas to bits for stepping out of line?"

He'd caught the archangel by surprise, that much was obvious, and Gabriel's gaze shot immediately to the bemusedly observing Castiel. "He doesn't look blown to bits to me."

"Only because the Big Man put humpty-dumpty back together again," Dean growled in return. "You don't have any high ground to stand on here, Gabriel, you _ran_ _away_, and maybe I was running too, but at least it was towards the fight."

"Towards the Apocalypse, you mean," Gabriel corrected him sharply. "Which _you_ started."

"It was Michael who arranged for the Seals to be broken," Cas interjected. "Dean's choices had little effect on the end outcome."

"You know what I don't get?" Gabriel whirled on his lesser brother. "Is why you are so ready to leapt to the Winchesters' defense. Or did I misinterpret the part where they banished you to Heaven?"

"Dean may have sent me there," Cas agreed tonelessly. "But he was not the one who inflicted my wounds. Those were my own brothers and sisters, Gabriel. That was my home."

Sometimes it was easy to forget what sacrificing everything actually meant. Dean's home had always been his family, but Cas didn't have either anymore, and the poor equivalent he'd built to replace it had just been utterly decimated by Dean's betrayal.

"So you're just going to let them have the final say?" Gabriel's opinion of that was quite clear. "You can do better than that, Castiel. Apparently Raph exploded you, but you're still here, and I'm pretty sure it wasn't just so you could roll over and die again."

"And what would you have me do?" Cas demanded sharply. "Even without my injuries I am weaker now than the majority of our brethren."

"And since when has that mattered?" came Gabriel's ready response. "The only reason you're still alive is because you're a lot smarter than the average foot soldier. They don't appoint garrison captains on a whose prettiest basis, you know."

"He's right, Cas," Dean found himself agreeing with the archangel against every desire to do the exact opposite, because he knew where the Fallen angel's line of thought was headed and he didn't like the final destination. "Mojo is irrelevant here. Think about how many times you've pulled one over Zachariah, and I'm pretty sure he's higher up the food chain than you. Hell, we trapped an archangel. If that doesn't prove brains outweigh brawn I don't know what does. Though if you ever tell Sam I said that I'm denying everything."

"I don't see why," Gabriel replied blandly. "It's not like Sam's been blessed with an overabundance of intelligence either."

Dean glared, and Cas sounded mildly rebuking when he said, "_Gabriel_."

"What?" The archangel feigned ignorance. "It ain't my fault if the truth hurts. Besides, look at it this way. The sooner you get your head back in the game the sooner I stop tormenting your pet humans."

"You're an ass, Gabriel." It wasn't his best comeback ever, and the smug grin thrown his way proved it.

"Name calling, Dean, that's real mature."

"Because you're just the epitome of maturity, Mr. Slow-Dancing-Alien."

"Hey, you liked that one, you're just sour you didn't get to enjoy your consolation prize."

"Right, because it's not like you killed me a hundred times over or anything."

"You don't even _remember_ any of that, so what are you whining about?"

Dean's response cut off in a startled yelp as the floor raced up to meet him, Sam's exclamation of surprise informing him he had just been rudely returned to the real world with enough mental force he had been propelled off the bed.

"Well, I'll be." Beside and above him, Gabriel folded his arms, his expression a mixture between disgruntlement and amusement. "The little shit just kicked us out."


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary: The angel sigil Castiel taught Dean sends any angel nearby back to Heaven. Having Fallen for the Winchesters' sake, Castiel can't quite understand how Dean ever believed that using the same sigil on him was anything less than a death sentence. **

A/N: So I am currently enjoying the awesome effects of a cold right now, just in time for the long weekend. A _fine_ long weekend, no less. As such, I can't make any claims as to the quality of the writing. There are words, on paper, mostly in the correct order. It'll have to do.

To those of you still waiting for PM and review replies, I WILL get to you, just as soon as me and my head are on speaking terms again. :-)

Read, review, and enjoy.

Cheerio,

Cheekyrox

* * *

_**Part 6-Wake Up Call**_

* * *

There was nothing left.

That was the first thing he became aware of when awareness was a state of being he could recognize again, and he wished almost instantly for oblivion once more, because in oblivion this truth had not existed. His Grace was all but gone, a bare flicker too small to even be cradled in imagined hands, and he felt its loss like a terrible wound. Like a part of himself had been torn away, beaten bloody, and then returned to its rightful place. It was still there, just barely, but there was _nothing_ left and this was so much worse than he had ever imagined it could be. He knew pain, had experienced it more and more in the recent past, but this was agony.

_Castiel_...

Warmth enveloped him suddenly, springing from an outside force, and reeling and disorientated he almost allowed himself to find comfort in the Grace of another. Then he remembered that it was others of his own ilk who had brought him so low, and he recoiled in panic and fear, looking for the hatred and designs of death that certainly lurked beneath the false kindness of freely offered comfort.

He was not expecting the brief ripple of hurt that echoed in response to his swift retreat, or the withdrawal of the other presence to a more comfortable distance, allowing him room to breathe. The other angel did not wholly remove themselves from his presence, however, and he found himself protectively encircling the last, shredded remnant of his angel self, silently begging that this not be taken away as well.

* * *

Gabriel had been trying to help.

It had been a long, long time since he had been faced with the prospect of dealing with a wounded angel, but that did not mean he had forgotten how it was done. Castiel's Grace was pulsing again now, at least, stirred back to life by his and Dean's combined efforts, but it was still so obviously fragile, and Castiel along with it, that buffeting both until they had some chance to recover, and maybe lending a little of his own abundant strength, had seemed the reasonable thing to do.

He hadn't been prepared for Castiel's reaction to him, and to be greeted with abstract terror by one of his own brothers was not something he had ever wished to experience. Lucifer was the one who was supposed to inspire such feelings. Michael, maybe, when he let that legendary temper loose. Not Gabriel. Not the beloved Messenger. He who was meant to appear to all as a friendly, trustable being, and who, of all the archangels, had found it easiest to converse with those outside his rank. They weren't supposed to be scared of him, any of them, and anger swept through him against his best efforts to remain distant.

What in the name of all that was Holy was Michael _doing_ up there? Besides apparently sending all of Heaven's armies after one, little angel who was slowly losing his powers and wouldn't be able to hurt a fly without a swat pretty soon. It was overkill, a punishment that, so far as he could tell, far outweighed the crime. Once upon a time this type of disobedience would have ended with cutting Castiel off from Heaven and letting him become what he had rebelled for the sake of. This was overkill, and indicated that Michael, or whichever one of his lackies was currently in the spotlight, saw Castiel as a much larger threat than he actually was. Or maybe this was simply overcompensation for the fact their best efforts to find and destroy Lucifer were about as ineffectual as they could possibly be.

It wasn't his problem anymore, though, and he really shouldn't care, but it was a lot easier to ignore Heaven's rapid slide away from morally defendable high ground when evidence of their misdeeds wasn't splayed out before you. He had one-up on the Winchesters in that regard, at least, because they were still waiting on Castiel summoning enough willpower to move his vessel, and he briefly entertained the idea of letting them know their so-called friend had taken a few steps back from the precipice. Very briefly. For about two seconds. Then he promptly decided this was all their fault and they could stew in their worry for a while longer.

They were otherwise occupied at present anyway, desperately trying to find a way to rescue baby Winchester, who was most likely already toast anyway. Why his fellow celestials thought asking any relation of the Winchesters for help would end well he had no idea, but the end results were pretty much guaranteed from the get-go. And soooo not his concern. He was already in this mess far deeper than he wanted to be, because Apocalypses were a thing he typically tried to avoid, so he had absolutely no intention of being pulled deeper.

Which meant the only issue he had to pay any mind to was that of Castiel's wellbeing. Well, that and his newfound apparent ability to petrify his lesser sibling without even doing anything.

"This is what happens when you spend all your time in the company of morons, bro," he stated matter-of-factly. "It catches. Now, let's try this again, shall we?"

* * *

"This isn't working." Fighting back the throbbing ache behind his eyes Dean shoved the thick volume he was fairly certain was responsible for his pain away, ignoring Sam's disapproving stare and Bobby's warning glance. "We're wasting time here."

Neither of his fellow researchers deemed that statement worthy of a response, each turning back to their respective books with single-minded focus, leaving Dean staring moodily at the just barely ajar door.

"I should go check on Cas."

"Leave them be, you idjit," Bobby instantly stamped on that thought. "There ain't nothing more you could do in there that Gabriel isn't already doing. He's in good hands."

Dean swung on the senior hunter, incredulous. "You're calling Gabriel's hands good? The guy's a complete dick!"

"And remind me again how we ended up in this predicament in the first place?" Bobby's glare was pointed and ensnaring. "If I was you I'd be rehearsing my apology right now. Feathers might be a tolerant soul most of the time, but you crossed a line, Dean."

A line that seemed to have been drawn by just about everyone save himself.

"Yeah, well..." He'd heard this already, from Cas, from Gabriel, from Sam, and now from Bobby too. He was kinda getting tired of hearing the same thing over and over again. "He can beat the shit out of me as much as he likes if he'd just wake up."

"Gabriel said whatever you two did in there worked," Sam reminded him, as though anything Gabriel said actually had any value. "We need to focus on getting Adam back right now."

"So why not go straight to the source?" he demanded, fed up with books and ready for another round with the Trickster in the next room over. "Gabriel knows where they're hiding, for sure."

"Maybe, but he won't tell." Sam sounded certain, and Dean cast his brother a questioning look. "I tried while you were out of it," he explained. "Gabriel was quite clear he had no intention of helping us, and, uh, he said something about confiscating Cas."

Dean blinked. "Say what now?"

"Yeah, um, turns out he's been keeping an eye on Cas since TV Land."

"Well, he's doing a pretty piss poor job of it!"

"That's funny." Except Sam didn't look at all amused. "He said pretty much the same thing about us."

Dean opened his mouth to argue, remembered why they had needed to call the least dickish of the archangels in the first place, and abruptly changed tact. "So, what? He's going to take us to court over custody issues?"

"Sounds to me like he already has," Bobby grunted from his forgotten corner of the room. "And he was playing both judge and jury."

Dean stared at the senior hunter for a moment, then came to an executive decision.

"Fuck that."

Swinging on his heel he made a beeline for the door, crashing into the next room only to have his thoughts derail when he was greeted with the absurd sight of Gabriel using the bed as a footrest whilst steadily and repetitively poking Castiel with a long, wooden cane he had magicked up out of nowhere.

"What the hell are you doing?" The words came out sounding more incredulous than angry, which was a kinda accurate reflection of his actual emotional state.

"Hey, I tried the gentle approach and it just about scared him to death. Irritating seemed the next logical step."

Dean response, which would have been non too polite, was discarded and forgotten the moment Castiel flinched at the pressure being exerted upon his shoulder and lethargically lifted a hand to ward off the annoyance. Gabriel grinned and redoubled his efforts as Dean drew nearer in hopeful expectation. The angel did his apparent utmost to ignore the continuing annoyance that was Gabriel, but eventually his eyelids began to flutter as he showed signs of truly waking, and Gabriel lowered the cane, allowing Dean to take the lead.

"Cas?" Dean did so by reaching out and gently shaking his friend's shoulder. "Hey, Cas. Rise and shine, buddy."

He hadn't realized exactly how deep the pit in the bottom of his stomach was until hazy blue eyes clashed with his own and that same pit began to dissolve.

"Hey," he offered, perhaps a little too brightly. "You with us?"

There was no denying the fact the left-hook blindsided him, propelling him across the room to crash into the wall hard enough he saw stars, the effectiveness of the blow not at all diminished by the way Castiel had overbalanced and toppled gracelessly onto the floor in its immediate wake.

"Yeah, okay, I was kinda asking for that." Shoving himself upright with an effort Dean gingerly probed what was no doubt going to be a killer bruise in a few hours. "Still an angel then, huh?"

It shouldn't have been possible to smile in the face of the glacial ire being pointed in his direction.

Somehow, he managed it regardless.


	7. Chapter 7

**A/N: I am currently going through one of those phases when I want to bin just about everything I write. I'm posting this before I have a chance to change my mind. Apologies if it burns your eyes out due to a lack of proofreading.**

* * *

**Part 7: Choices**

* * *

It was not the first time Castiel had been betrayed.

In truth he did not know when the first time had been. When had his superiors first started being so selective with the truths they shared? When had the Apocalypse been decided upon by the few and hidden from the many? Whenever it had occurred, whenever that ill-fated decision had been made, that had been the first, and he did not even know when it had happened, or how many other lies had trailed at its heels. There had been Uriel, who turned, and those others who turned with him. Zachariah, who took far too much pleasure in pain for one of his kind. Raphael, who had struck hard and fast and bothered himself not with mercy. Gabriel, who had abandoned his brethren to their fate long ago. Michael, who had allowed Lucifer's Fall to twist the protector into the destroyer. His Father, who had brought him back only to die a second time.

It was not the first time Castiel had been betrayed, and he had never seen the betrayal coming, but it was different this time, worse somehow, though he could not understand why. Why should the turning of his own family against him hurt less than this act of treason committed by his human charge? Was it because, at this point, he had nothing else to turn to, no other avenue of action, and nobody else to believe in? Or was it that the friendship he shared – had thought he shared – with the elder Winchester easily surpassed in strength the ties between him and his family?

Regardless of the reason, Castiel was angry, and the depth to which that anger ran was disconcerting, to say the least. This was not the simple irritation he had felt in the past, or the ire that had arisen at the wrongdoings of his brethren. It was nothing like the righteous anger he had felt upon discovering Uriel's betrayal, and it easily superseded his bitter disappointment at Dean's surrender. No, this was different. This was a fury that set his vessel's bones shaking, a red, hot flame that surpassed even the steady burn of his depleted grace. A fire he feared he could not control.

It was likely unwise to leave Bobby Singer's house in his current weakened state, but he had been afraid that if he remained in that room any longer he would do serious harm to the Hunter responsible for his current condition. He had not gone far, hovering in the darkness of the graveyard of metal husks, leaning against a machine now devoid of purpose, and it was there that Gabriel found him. The archangel fluttered into place beside him, not having bothered to walk the length of the yard, then folded his arms and leant back against the rusting car.

"You look terrible."

The words were flippantly uttered, but that did not decrease their truth. Castiel idly wondered whether the archangel was referring to the bandage clad flesh of his vessel or the tattered state of his true form. The bandages, at least, were no longer necessary, the damage to his vessel long since healed, though not by himself. It seemed logical, then, that the archangel was speaking about the damage only he could see. Castiel could have looked, had he truly desired to, but for the moment feeling was more than enough.

Gabriel, discontented with the silence, shifted slightly. "You going to sulk out here all night?"

"No." He was not sulking at all. He had merely needed a moment. Just one, brief moment to pull himself back together and pretend the gaping holes where he had been all but torn apart could be fixed. He should have known that was too much to ask. "There is work to be done."

Adam Milligan still needed to be retrieved, if it was still possible to do so, and that was but the first task on the ever-growing list. Dean was right about one thing; they were running out of time.

"Right, the whole stopping the Apocalypse gig." Gabriel rolled his eyes, a jarring action, because Castiel still wasn't used to seeing such human expressions on a being who radiated with Heaven's power. "Overrated, don't you think?"

He was in no mood for Gabriel's games. Not now. "You have made your opinion on the matter quite clear. I do not understand why you feel the need to reassert it."

"Touchy, touchy." Shaking his head Gabriel lapsed into silence again, though only for a few moments, then he turned to Castiel with a quizzical frown. "You're really going to go back in there, aren't you?"

It wasn't really a question, because Gabriel already knew the answer. Castiel was set on this course now, and not even Dean's betrayal could change that. He offered a reply regardless, because it was expected, and because he had learnt it was unwise to outright defy an archangel.

"I am."

"Why?" Gabriel asked bluntly. "What are you and the two muttonheads actually hoping to achieve?"

"I don't know." Staring across the night enshrouded scrapyard he gave the question a few moments of thought. "Perhaps to prevent the end of the world?"

"Oh." Gabriel snorted. "Is that all?"

It was a less mocking response than he had expected, and he cast the archangel a sidelong glance, taking in the pensive set to Gabriel's normally jovial features.

"You could help us." It was an impulsive statement, and it probably sprung more from desperation than anything else, but he did not regret saying it.

"What? And _die_?" The archangel waved away the very idea. "No thanks, bro, I'll leave the self-sacrifice to you, huh? Or maybe not. You ever considered dumping these losers and taking up juggling?"

"Why would I…?" He paused, frowning, certain he had misunderstood whatever was said in some way, and focusing instead on the part he did understand. "I cannot abandon them."

"Why not?" Gabriel was bluntly direct. "It's not like they haven't done the same to you."

Anger flared again, of a different kind this time, and words tumbled from his lips before he could stop them. "You are in no position to judge that."

"Am I not?" The archangel wasn't deterred in the slightest. "So that wasn't me just hauling your sorry ass back from the brink of oblivion because your buddy Dean sent you off to the slaughterhouse so he could go party with Mike? Or how about the little part where you _died_ trying to help them?"

"Dean did not mean to hurt me." As angry as he was at the Hunter for his surrender, his _betrayal_, he knew that much for certain. The truth had been written plain to see in the horror on Dean's face when he realized what he had done. "And my death was my own fault. Had I granted Dean's request for aid sooner, I most likely would not have perished in the first place."

Gabriel waved a hand in front of the lesser angel's face, and Castiel backpedalled so far as he was able with his back already pressed against the wrecked car. He hadn't bothered to replace his missing shirt when he awoke, and the cool metal sent unfamiliar, pinprick sensations sprouting along the parts of his vessel's flesh that the bandages did not cover. Ignoring the strangeness of such new feelings for the time being he focused instead on Gabriel's actions, irritably batting the archangel's hand away.

"What are you doing?"

"Oh, I don't know. Just looking for the invisible rose-tinted glasses. Seriously, did the Winchesters bewitch you or something? Or are you that much of a glutton for punishment?"

"They have made mistakes." And, sometimes, those mistakes very nearly ended up killing him. "But they are trying, at least. It is more than I can say for most of my own kind."

"Really not feeling the love for the family, huh?" Gabriel's tone was emphatic. "Believe me, I know the feeling."

"Do you?" He dared to meet the archangel's amber gaze head on. "You left, Gabriel. You found safety. You built yourself a home. You abandoned the rest of us to suffer Michael's bitterness in the wake of Lucifer's fall. I followed my orders for so long without question because I believed them to be just, because they once _were_. Heaven has changed since, and not for the better."

"And you think I could have made a difference to all that?" Gabriel was defensive. "I'm one little archangel, Castiel, not some freakin' sparkling friendship fairy with the power to make everything better."

"But you didn't even _try_."

Gabriel's eyes flashed. "Hey, I did try, okay? I tried everything. You think just because I was on the same footing as Mike and Lucy that either of them bothered to listen to me? Raph and me, we tried _everything_. Reasoning. Cajoling. Lock 'em in a room and let 'em hug it out. Everything. But, what happened to our family? It was as inevitable as this fight you're trying to stop now. Wise up, Castiel, this can't be stopped, and the only thing you're going to achieve by standing up to Heaven is getting yourself killed… Again, apparently."

"Why does it matter to you what I do?" he asked blankly. "If you don't believe I can change what is to come, why should my actions affect you at all?"

Gabriel didn't answer straight away, and when he did it was with a question that sidestepped entirely the need for a response.

"Did Raphael really kill you?"

He saw no reason to lie. "Yes."

Gabriel let out a long breath, staring moodily at the rough gravel beneath them. "Well… That's screwy."

"In the eyes of Heaven, I am Fallen. Since Lucifer the punishment for such a crime has been death."

"But you aren't Fallen," Gabriel pointed out flatly. "Unless I missed the part where you started worshipping the Devil and trying to turn people into demons? No? That didn't happen? Then what the heck? This is slap on the wrist and a week in the brig stuff, not license to kill."

Because, once, choosing humanity's side in anything would have been seen as the lesser of two evils. Once his actions would have been preferable, a far better alternative than following in Lucifer's footsteps. Once Heaven had been what it was meant to be, long before Castiel had realized it was no longer.

"Much has changed since you left."

"Yeah." The archangel nodded moodily. "I can see that."

They lapsed into silence, and Castiel tried not to take too much comfort from the presence of another angel at his side. Gabriel's aura was muted and masked, the archangel still hiding from Heaven's probing eyes, but this close and without his twisted world to hide in there was no mistaking what he was. Castiel did not know how long it had been since he had last stood in the presence of one of his own without one or the other of them intending to kill the other, but it had been long enough that he was dreading the inevitable moment when Gabriel departed once again.

"I did try, you know," Gabriel spoke into the still night, his tone softer, almost subdued. "But you can only fight against the inevitable for so long before you realize it's actually inevitable."

"I do not believe you could have prevented Lucifer from Falling," he agreed, just as quietly. "But, had you stayed, perhaps you could have saved Michael."

"Mikey?" Gabriel shot him an incredulous glance. "What did Mr. Righteousness himself need saving from? It's not like he was ever in danger of Falling."

"Not like Lucifer did." But Castiel's own situation had taught him that there were many different kinds of Falling angels, and Lucifer's plummet from the light was a scar Heaven had never truly recovered from. It had left wounds, and if he had been blind to the festering infection growing in those wounds for centuries then at least he was opening his eyes now. "But Michael would never have accepted the advent of an Apocalypse before."

Gabriel was silent, an affirmation, for he had known Michael far better than Castiel ever had or would. The archangels had always been more a family than the rest of the host. Perhaps that was why they had all been so affected by Lucifer's actions. They had all been too close, they had all been burned, and the scars remained a part of them all.

"Too late to do anything now," Gabriel said at last, sounding resigned. "Lucy's out, Mikey's on the roll-on-Apocalypse bandwagon, Raph's apparently taken to killing other angels, and you think those two messed up halfwits in there can stop any of them? C'mon, Castiel, you're clutching at straws here and you know it."

"I am only doing what I believe to be right." Gabriel snorted his opinion of that, and Castiel frowned. "What would you have me do instead? If Lucifer wins this war he will surely kill all who oppose him. If Michael wins and Lucifer dies I will be seen as a threat to their future Paradise. Both will hunt me down and destroy me. Either way, the Apocalypse will inevitably lead to my death."

"No wonder you're so grumpy all the time," Gabriel complained. "Seriously, are there any thoughts in that melon of yours that aren't six miles south of depressing?" Castiel did not deign to answer that question, and Gabriel continued without missing a beat. "You know what your problem is, bro? You're thinking inside the box. Why not just fake your death and take a hike? Ditch the Winchesters, ditch Heaven and Hell and whatnot else, and take a vacation? Anywhere you like, air fares included."

He wasn't even tempted. "No."

"Why the hell not?" Gabriel demanded, sounding almost petulant.

"Because running away would not solve anything," he replied. "You are proof of that."

"Oh, am I?" Gabriel bristled.

"Yes." It was unwise to provoke an archangel. In Dean's words, Castiel didn't give a shit. "You fled because you did not wish to watch the fighting. It followed you. You claimed to want nothing to do with this, yet you are here. There are some things that can't be outrun."

"Like Destiny?" Gabriel suggested snappishly. "Why don't you try telling yourself that?"

"We are not running away," Castiel corrected him. "We are running towards it, but on a different path than that planned for us."

"Yeah, let me know how you get on with that." Gabriel straightened, apparently planning to leave, his next words tinged with the faintest hint of bitter anger. "If you're still alive, that is."

"Gabriel..."

"_No_." The archangel whirled on him, and there was genuine anger in his eyes. "If you want to die for those two idiots in there then that's your affair, Castiel. I've already done more for you than I should have. You're on your own."

"It's not just for them." He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "Humanity as a whole is worth the effort to save, and I do not believe you will find yourself able to stand idly by when it comes time to choose a side."

Gabriel shot him a cocky grin. "Watch me."

Castiel opened his mouth to respond, then stopped, his breath robbed from him by the sudden shift in the currents of power surrounding them both. Gabriel also froze, his usual mask falling away beneath horrified surprise, and their eyes met with the shared knowledge that something terrible had just occurred. There was a shift, a palpable crackle in the air, and then it was gone, leaving a dreadful sense of foreboding in its wake.

Gabriel hesitated for a bare second before reaching for Castiel's arm, airlifting both into the house where they landed in the midst of a fairly heated argument between the three Hunters gathered there.

"Dean." Castiel cut through the overriding voices with that single word, then fully justified the wary looks on the trio's faces as he uttered five more. "Michael has taken a vessel."


End file.
